Cal and Junior were at the edge of the aisle, looking uncomfortable. They probably had expected to follow me around and catch some scofflaws when they got their marching orders from Ranger. And here they were in the Macy's shoe department, gaping at Lula, who was all boobs and booty in the rhinestone shoes.
“What do you think?” Lula wanted to know. “Should I get these shoes?”
“Sure,” I said. “They'll go with the pink outfit you got in Vegas.”
What if Ranger's wrong, I thought. What if the carnation killer is tired of the game and doesn't want to play with me? What if he just wants to kill me? He could be watching me now. Lining me up in his sights.
Lula paid for the shoes and we hit the food court next. Lula got a chicken. I got a cheeseburger. Cal and Junior got nothing. Guess they didn't eat while working. Didn't want to have a burger in their hand if they had to go for their guns. That was fine by me. I was scanning the mall and my eyes were rolling around in my head so fast I was getting a headache.
I watched Lula tear into her food and I had a creepy thought that she might be right about her teeth. She could really rip apart a chicken.
“What are you staring at?” Lula wanted to know. “Are you staring at my teeth?”
“No! Swear to God. I was just. . . daydreaming.”
After we ate we went back to the cars. I drove about a half mile down Route 1 and Lula and I turned our attention to the motel coming up on the right. It was the Morelli and Gilman motel.
“Probably I didn't see what I thought I saw that day,” Lula said. “Probably I was just imagining ...”
Lula stopped talking because Morelli’s truck was parked in front of one of the units.
“Uh-?oh,” Lula said.
I'd been doing eighty and I was a quarter mile past the hotel by the time I screeched to a stop. Cal and Junior went flying past me, utter surprise and horror on their faces. I put the Escape into reverse, backed up on the shoulder at a modest fifty miles per hour, and turned into the motel parking lot. No sign of Cal and Junior.
“Suppose it's police business?” Lula wanted to know. “Like maybe it's a sting.”
“He's not working vice anymore. And this isn't even in Trenton.”
“You aren't going to do something stupid like beat down the door, are you?”
I parked at the far end of the lot, behind a tan van. “Do you have a better idea?”
“We could sneak around back and listen in. Then if we hear them doing the deed we can beat down the door.”
I'd rather knock and have Morelli answer the door half-?dressed than catch Morelli and Gilman in the act. I couldn't think of too many things that would be more depressing than hearing or seeing Morelli playing hide the salami with someone other than me. On the other hand, I didn't want to make a false accusation. “Okay,” I said, “we'll go around back.”
We walked around the side of the motel and began counting off units. Each unit had two windows on the back side. I was guessing one window was in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. There were twelve units in the first building. All were at ground level. A strip of grass hugged the back of the building. Beyond the grass was a chunk of overgrown woods filled with refuse. A plastic milk crate. Soda cans. A torn mattress. I had no idea what was on the other side of the wooded area.
Curtains were drawn on all the units. We listened briefly at each window, hearing nothing. We got to the seventh unit and heard voices. Lula and I pressed closer to the window. The voices were muted, difficult to hear. The back window was closed. The air-?conditioner was running in the front window. There was a slight break in the curtain halfway up the back window. Lula tippy toed to the woods and got the milk crate. She put the milk crate under the window and motioned that I should get on the crate and look in the window.
No way was I going to look in the window. I didn't want to see what was going on inside. I whispered to Lula that she should look.
Lula got up on the milk crate, pressed her nose to the window . . . and her phone rang. Lula grabbed at the phone hooked onto her stretch pants and stopped the ringing, but it was too late. Everyone heard the phone.
Shouting erupted from inside the motel room. A gunshot rang out. And a large man in a tan suit crashed through the window and knocked Lula off the milk crate.
“What the hell?” Lula said, sprawled on the ground in a tangle of curtain, sprinkled with window glass.
I wasn't sure what any of this was about, but I'd heard the shot and the guy who came through the window wasn't Joe, so I roundhoused him with my purse and sent him to his knees. I had him at gunpoint when Morelli stuck his head out the broken window.
“Oh Christ,” Morelli said when he saw me. And he ducked back inside.
Guys came running from either side of the building. Obviously cops, but I didn't know any of them. Two were in FBI T-?shirts. Morelli joined them. I didn't see anything of Terry Gilman.
Morelli grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I saw your truck.”